Something very interesting is afoot in the Alfresco community. A subset of the community has formed an independent organization called The Order of the Bee, aimed at making sure the freely-available open source platform for Enterprise Content Management stays freely-available, forever.

The group of individuals, who hail from all parts of the globe, are customers, partners, independent individuals, and even Alfresco Software employees. Despite varied backgrounds and interests, they all have at least one thing in common: They want to make sure that Alfresco Community Edition stays free and open.

Alfresco has always provided what is essentially an “open core” distribution. The on-premises software ships in two editions: Community Edition is the freely-available software licensed under the LGPLv3 and Enterprise Edition is commercially licensed. But lately there has been growing concern amongst community members that Alfresco Software, the commercial company behind the product, doesn’t always have the best interests of the community in mind. Thus was born The Order of the Bee, a reference to the community keynote I delivered at Alfresco Summit 2013.

The Order began forming about the same time I stepped down as Alfresco’s Chief Community Officer. While the timing is uncanny, and I am a founding member of the Order, that timing was not planned and is coincidental.

Check out the web site to see what the Order is all about. If you feel compelled to participate, be sure to submit the contact form. And follow the group on Twitter.